Pantone My Apartment Please

English company W2 has created a number of Pantone items for the designer's home. Varieties of Pantone mugs and messenger bags are all that's available in their Pantone collection now, although it inspires me to think what else we could make Pantone for an apartment like mine. Pantone plates and bowls too? A Pantone KitchenAid? Pantone wall paint? Pantone fabric? Ooh the possibilites...

Oh Boy!

Obama's campaign has been marked as one of the first to use the internet to its fullest capacity, from raising small sums of money from a large base to great uses of blogs, Twitter and Facebook. One of the most intriguing parts of his campaign, however, has to be ohboyobama.com, his idea generation site.

Idea generation sites cropped up awhile ago, mystarbucksidea.com probably taking the prize of most well known and popular, but Dell's ideastorm.com and make your own idea generation site kindlingapp.com are out there too. They're kind of the new hot web 2.0 gimmick, but they're not always appropriate and need quite a commitment from the host brand to really work without disillusioning their 'idea generators'.

Ohboyobama.com has been around since the primaries, but now that the election is finally in full swing we can see voters voice their opinions on all sorts of ideas from how he should handle McCain's VP pick Sarah Palin to what issues voters think he still needs to clarify. I find it a fascinating way for web 2.0 to play a part in politics and a great way for voters to get their voices heard to their candidates. The key will be, as it is in any idea generation site, how much and how well Obama actually listens to and implements these ideas.

We'll just have to wait and see.

Truth in Advertising #27

New business projects are often the most demanding.

(Busy with new biz—we'll post something new soon.)

Adweek Gets Political

Adweek asked a number of Creative Directors from agencies around the country and to make fake ads for the 2008 elections. In a time when political ads seem to be pretty creatively dead with nothing more than politicians kissing babies or bashing the other candidate, I was excited to see what some top creatives could come up with.

The result? Some great ideas playing it straight as well as plenty of tongue-and-cheek ads on both candidates. Check out the Adweek article to see the work and be sure to visit the video player in the side bar or you'll miss my two favorites—the satirical McCain and Obama tv spots from Goodby Silverstien and Partners.

Subtlety Is Key

This is a fun little video with a sort of surprising end—at least to me. Watch it, then read below.

Learn how to hack at 5min.com

Did you watch all the way through? Up until the end, did you realize this was a Sprite commercial/video? I sure didn't. After seeing Sprite and their lime green at the end, I did remember flashes of it throughout the video. Until the end, however, I completely didn't realize it was a promotional video at all. Now that I do know it's for Sprite, I'm a bit torn. I love that they were so subtle throughout the video, but now that I know it was a sponsored video, I wonder how much of it was staged. I wondered that while watching it anyway, but knowing it's a commercial makes me assume most of it was staged and it loses a bit of its charm. What do you think? Did you like how Sprite handled branding the video? Did knowledge of Sprite's involvement also make you question the 'real' quality of the video?

EA Sports Walks on Water with New Ad

How's this for Youtube recognition? According to this post at Awful Announcing, EA Sports created an ad for its new Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 in direct response to a gamer's post on Youtube.

We're thinking the Youtuber who posted the original video never would have guessed Tiger Woods himself would have a hand in responding. How cool.

A Brilliant Piece of Animation

I just couldn't leave our blog sitting on that last horrendous commercial, so I'm sliding in this fantastic little animated piece set to a John Lennon interview. It's really brilliantly done.

No Wonder People Hate Advertising

There are some pretty bad commercials out there, but this has to be one of the most distasteful I've seen in a long time. It really just makes me ill. As stated in the AdFreak post I discovered this in, it's no wonder people hate advertising.

Olympic Commercial Favorites

There are a number of nice commercials circulating during the Olympics this year. Two of my favorites are below:

As a huge fan fan of the Killers debut album, this Nike spot featuring All These Things That I've Done caught and held my attention immediately. While it wasn't the album's major single, it was always a personal favorite and Nike put it to great use in this spot.


My other favorite also circles around the music choice—not because I'm a huge fan of this particular song, but because it just works with the spirit of the Olympics. It put a smile on my face :)

Missing Megan

If you haven't noticed, my counterpart is still MIA. You may also have noticed the typo on the poll to the right (others have). Sadly, my bad proofing skills have come to light without Megan keeping me in check—see how things fall apart when she's not here?

Unfortunately, I can't edit the poll without erasing it completely, thus erasing all the current votes, so the typo will have to stay until the poll is completed. That would drive Megan crazy. Good thing she's too busy with giant moving trucks and setting up her new home to notice—yet.

Hurry back Megan! We miss you! And this blog is starting to feel decidedly one-sided.